Leadership at Baptist Health Hardin

Robert Ramey is president of Baptist Health Hardin, a 300-bed hospital in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. Baptist Health Hardin is the third largest employer in Hardin County and serves more than 400,000 residents of 10 central Kentucky counties.

Ramey has been with Baptist Health for 25 years. Most recently, he served as president of Baptist Health Deaconess Madisonville, a joint venture with Deaconess Health System.

In that role, he led the hospital in establishing a new organizational framework, blending local leadership with support functions from both systems to increase efficiencies. He created physician, management and staff councils to improve the quality and safety of patient care, reorganized physician recruitment to develop a robust succession and growth plan, and expanded services, including the addition of surgical robotics, tele-intensivists in the Critical Care unit, interventional radiology, and regional sleep clinics.

In addition, he led the planning of a multimillion-dollar proposed facility renovation targeting key service areas, including operating suites, the cancer center and the Emergency Department.

Before the joint venture, he was president of Baptist Health Madisonville, where he partnered with employed and independent providers to offer advanced services in the region’s rural market. This included opening two new urgent care centers and recruiting new providers to expand primary and specialty care. Other services added under his leadership include inpatient behavioral health, wound treatment, palliative care, telestroke care, and a 35-bed long-term acute care hospital joint venture.

Prior to his role in Madisonville, Ramey was vice president of Ambulatory Services for Baptist Health Richmond. In that position, he worked to expand ambulatory services in the Richmond market and was responsible for ambulatory surgery, cardiac catheterization services, patient access, regulatory affairs, and major construction projects.

Ramey also served as president and CEO of Russell County Hospital, which Baptist Health managed at the time, and as administrator of Baptist Physicians Surgery Center in Lexington. Early in his career with Baptist Health Lexington, he was responsible for marketing and network development, contributing to the growth of Baptist Health services in communities along the I-75 corridor.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration and an MBA from the University of Kentucky and is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.